Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
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| "O day and night, but this is wondrous strange" |
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| /---- / /__| / / /__| / | / / / |
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| No Dimensions One Dimension |
| . A ROMANCE OF MANY DIMENSIONS ----- |
| POINTLAND LINELAND |
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| Two Dimensions Three Dimensions |
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| FLATLAND SPACELAND |
| "Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk!" |
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With Illustrations by the Author, A SQUARE (Edwin A. Abbott)
To
The Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERAL
And H. C. IN PARTICULAR
This Work is Dedicated
By a Humble Native of Flatland
In the Hope that
Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries
Of THREE Dimensions
Having been previously conversant
With ONLY TWO
So the Citizens of that Celestial Region
May aspire yet higher and higher
To the Secrets of FOUR FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions
Thereby contributing
To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION
And the possible Development
Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY
Among the Superior Races
Of SOLID HUMANITY
Preface to the Second and Revised Edition, 1884.
By the Editor
CONTENTS:
<<Illustration 1>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
When I was in Spaceland I heard that your sailors have very similar
experiences while they traverse your seas and discern some distant
island or coast lying on the horizon. The far-off land may have bays,
forelands, angles in and out to any number and extent;
yet at a distance you see none of these (unless indeed your sun shines
bright upon them revealing the projections and retirements by means of
light and shade), nothing but a grey unbroken line upon the water.
Well, that is just what we see when one of our triangular or other
acquaintances comes toward us in Flatland. As there is neither
sun with us, nor any light of such a kind as to make shadows,
we have none of the helps to the sight that you have in Spaceland.
If our friend comes closer to us we see his line becomes larger;
if he leaves us it becomes smaller: but still he looks like
a straight line; be he a Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Hexagon, Circle,
what you will -- a straight Line he looks and nothing else.
You may perhaps ask how under these disadvantageous circumstances
we are able to distinguish our friends from one another:
but the answer to this very natural question will be more fitly
and easily given when I come to describe the inhabitants of Flatland.
For the present let me defer this subject, and say a word or two
about the climate and houses in our country.
As with you, so also with us, there are four points of the compass
North, South, East, and West.
There being no sun nor other heavenly bodies, it is impossible for us
to determine the North in the usual way; but we have a method of
our own. By a Law of Nature with us, there is a constant attraction
to the South; and, although in temperate climates this is very slight
-- so that even a Woman in reasonable health can journey
several furlongs northward without much difficulty --
yet the hampering effect of the southward attraction is
quite sufficient to serve as a compass in most parts of our earth.
Moreover, the rain (which falls at stated intervals) coming always
from the North, is an additional assistance; and in the towns we have
the guidance of the houses, which of course have their side-walls
running for the most part North and South, so that the roofs
may keep off the rain from the North. In the country, where there are
no houses, the trunks of the trees serve as some sort of guide.
Altogether, we have not so much difficulty as might be expected
in determining our bearings.
Yet in our more temperate regions, in which the southward attraction
is hardly felt, walking sometimes in a perfectly desolate plain
where there have been no houses nor trees to guide me, I have been
occasionally compelled to remain stationary for hours together,
waiting till the rain came before continuing my journey. On the weak
and aged, and especially on delicate Females, the force of attraction
tells much more heavily than on the robust of the Male Sex,
so that it is a point of breeding, if you meet a Lady in the street,
always to give her the North side of the way -- by no means
an easy thing to do always at short notice when you are in rude health
and in a climate where it is difficult to tell your North
from your South.
Windows there are none in our houses: for the light comes to us alike
in our homes and out of them, by day and by night, equally at
all times and in all places, whence we know not. It was in old days,
with our learned men, an interesting and oft-investigated question,
"What is the origin of light?" and the solution of it
has been repeatedly attempted, with no other result than to crowd
our lunatic asylums with the would-be solvers. Hence,
after fruitless attempts to suppress such investigations indirectly
by making them liable to a heavy tax, the Legislature,
in comparatively recent times, absolutely prohibited them.
I -- alas, I alone in Flatland -- know now only too well
the true solution of this mysterious problem; but my knowledge
cannot be made intelligible to a single one of my countrymen;
and I am mocked at -- I, the sole possessor of the truths of Space
and of the theory of the introduction of Light from the world
of three Dimensions -- as if I were the maddest of the mad!
But a truce to these painful digressions: let me return
to our houses.
The most common form for the construction of a house is five-sided
or pentagonal, as in the annexed figure. The two Northern sides RO,
OF, constitute the roof, and for the most part have no doors;
on the East is a small door for the Women; on the West a much
larger one for the Men; the South side or floor is usually doorless.
Square and triangular houses are not allowed, and for this reason.
The angles of a Square (and still more those of an equilateral
Triangle), being much more pointed than those of a Pentagon,
and the lines of inanimate objects (such as houses) being dimmer
than the lines of Men and Women, it follows that there is
no little danger lest the points of a square or triangular
house residence might do serious injury to an inconsiderate
or perhaps absent-minded traveller suddenly therefore,
running against them: and as early as the eleventh century
of our era, triangular houses were universally forbidden by Law,
the only exceptions being fortifications, powder-magazines, barracks,
and other state buildings, which it is not desirable that
the general public should approach without circumspection.
<<Illustration 2>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
O
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
R/ \F
\_ /
_/
Men's door _ Women's door
_ /
\____________/
A B
<<Illustration 3>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
C (1)
|\ - _ D
| \ ||- _
| \ || - _
| <--- >|| -----------+(> Eye-glance
___C' (2) | / A|| _ -
___--- \ - _D' | / ||_ -
__--- \ || - _ |/ _ - E
| \ || - _ B
| \ || - _
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| <----------- A'>|| ------------------------+(>
| / || _ -
| / || _ -
|__ / || _ -
---___ / || _ -
---___/ _ -E'
B'
<<Illustration 4>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
/\ - _ C
/ \ || _
/ \ || - _
/ \|| - _
| A || - _
| || -+(> (Eye)
| B || _ -
\ /|| _ -
\ / || _ -
\ / || -
\/ _ - D
M
_____
/ \ - C_
/ \|| - _
| || - _
A|- - - - - - -||B- - - - - -_-+(> (Eye)
| || _ -
\ /||_ -
\ _____ / - D
The agitation for the Universal Colour Bill continued for three years;
and up to the last moment of that period it seemed as though Anarchy
were destined to triumph.
A whole army of Polygons, who turned out to fight as private soldiers,
was utterly annihilated by a superior force of Isosceles Triangles --
the Squares and Pentagons meanwhile remaining neutral.
Worse than all, some of the ablest Circles fell a prey to
conjugal fury. Infuriated by political animosity, the wives
in many a noble household wearied their lords with prayers
to give up their opposition to the Colour Bill; and some,
finding their entreaties fruitless, fell on and slaughtered
their innocent children and husband, perishing themselves in the act
of carnage. It is recorded that during that triennial agitation
no less than twenty-three Circles perished in domestic discord.
Great indeed was the peril. It seemed as though the Priests
had no choice between submission and extermination; when suddenly
the course of events was completely changed by one of those
picturesque incidents which Statesmen ought never to neglect,
often to anticipate, and sometimes perhaps to originate,
because of the absurdly disproportionate power with which they appeal
to the sympathies of the populace.
It happened that an Isosceles of a low type, with a brain little
if at all above four degrees -- accidentally dabbling in the colours
of some Tradesman whose shop he had plundered -- painted himself,
or caused himself to be painted (for the story varies)
with the twelve colours of a Dodecagon. Going into the Market Place
he accosted in a feigned voice a maiden, the orphan daughter
of a noble Polygon, whose affection in former days he had sought
in vain; and by a series of deceptions -- aided, on the one side,
by a string of lucky accidents too long to relate, and on the other,
by an almost inconceivable fatuity and neglect of ordinary precautions
on the part of the relations of the bride -- he succeeded in
consummating the marriage. The unhappy girl committed suicide
on discovering the fraud to which she had been subjected.
When the news of this catastrophe spread from State to State
the minds of the Women were violently agitated. Sympathy with
the miserable victim and anticipations of similar deceptions
for themselves, their sisters, and their daughters, made them
now regard the Colour Bill in an entirely new aspect.
Not a few openly avowed themselves converted to antagonism;
the rest needed only a slight stimulus to make a similar avowal.
Seizing this favourable opportunity, the Circles hastily convened
an extraordinary Assembly of the States; and besides the usual
guard of Convicts, they secured the attendance of a large number
of reactionary Women.
Amidst an unprecedented concourse, the Chief Circle of those days
-- by name Pantocyclus -- arose to find himself hissed and hooted
by a hundred and twenty thousand Isosceles. But he secured silence
by declaring that henceforth the Circles would enter on a policy
of Concession; yielding to the wishes of the majority,
they would accept the Colour Bill. The uproar being at once converted
to applause, he invited Chromatistes, the leader of the Sedition,
into the centre of the hall, to receive in the name of his followers
the submission of the Hierarchy. Then followed a speech,
a masterpiece of rhetoric, which occupied nearly a day
in the delivery, and to which no summary can do justice.
With a grave appearance of impartiality he declared that as
they were now finally committing themselves to Reform or Innovation,
it was desirable that they should take one last view of the perimeter
of the whole subject, its defects as well as its advantages.
Gradually introducing the mention of the dangers to the Tradesmen,
the Professional Classes and the Gentlemen, he silenced
the rising murmurs of the Isosceles by reminding them that,
in spite of all these defects, he was willing to accept the Bill
if it was approved by the majority. But it was manifest that all,
except the Isosceles, were moved by his words and were either
neutral or averse to the Bill.
Turning now to the Workmen he asserted that their interests must not
be neglected, and that, if they intended to accept the Colour Bill,
they ought at least to do so with full view of the consequences.
Many of them, he said, were on the point of being admitted to
the class of the Regular Triangles; others anticipated
for their children a distinction they could not hope for themselves.
That honourable ambition would now have to be sacrificed.
With the universal adoption of Colour, all distinctions would cease;
Regularity would be confused with Irregularity; development would
give place to retrogression; the Workman would in a few generations
be degraded to the level of the Military, or even the Convict Class;
political power would be in the hands of the greatest number,
that is to say the Criminal Classes, who were already more numerous
than the Workmen, and would soon out-number all the other Classes
put together when the usual Compensative Laws of Nature were violated.
A subdued murmur of assent ran through the ranks of the Artisans,
and Chromatistes, in alarm, attempted to step forward
and address them. But he found himself encompassed with guards
and forced to remain silent while the Chief Circle in a few
impassioned words made a final appeal to the Women, exclaiming that,
if the Colour Bill passed, no marriage would henceforth be safe,
no woman's honour secure; fraud, deception, hypocrisy would pervade
every household; domestic bliss would share the fate
of the Constitution and pass to speedy perdition. "Sooner than this,"
he cried, "Come death."
At these words, which were the preconcerted signal for action,
the Isosceles Convicts fell on and transfixed the wretched
Chromatistes; the Regular Classes, opening their ranks,
made way for a band of Women who, under direction of the Circles,
moved, back foremost, invisibly and unerringly upon
the unconscious soldiers; the Artisans, imitating the example
of their betters, also opened their ranks. Meantime bands of Convicts
occupied every entrance with an impenetrable phalanx.
The battle, or rather carnage, was of short duration.
Under the skillful generalship of the Circles almost every Woman's
charge was fatal and very many extracted their sting uninjured,
ready for a second slaughter. But no second blow was needed;
the rabble of the Isosceles did the rest of the business
for themselves. Surprised, leader-less, attacked in front
by invisible foes, and finding egress cut off by the Convicts
behind them, they at once -- after their manner -- lost all presence
of mind, and raised the cry of "treachery". This sealed their fate.
Every Isosceles now saw and felt a foe in every other.
In half an hour not one of that vast multitude was living;
and the fragments of seven score thousand of the Criminal Class
slain by one another's angles attested the triumph of Order.
The Circles delayed not to push their victory to the uttermost.
The Working Men they spared but decimated. The Militia of
the Equilaterals was at once called out; and every Triangle
suspected of Irregularity on reasonable grounds, was destroyed
by Court Martial, without the formality of exact measurement
by the Social Board. The homes of the Military and Artisan classes
were inspected in a course of visitations extending through
upwards of a year; and during that period every town, village,
and hamlet was systematically purged of that excess of
the lower orders which had been brought about by the neglect to pay
the tribute of Criminals to the Schools and University,
and by the violation of the other natural Laws of the Constitution
of Flatland. Thus the balance of classes was again restored.
Needless to say that henceforth the use of Colour was abolished,
and its possession prohibited. Even the utterance of any word
denoting Colour, except by the Circles or by qualified
scientific teachers, was punished by a severe penalty. Only at
our University in some of the very highest and most esoteric classes
-- which I myself have never been privileged to attend --
it is understood that the sparing use of Colour is still sanctioned
for the purpose of illustrating some of the deeper problems
of mathematics. But of this I can only speak from hearsay.
Elsewhere in Flatland, Colour is now non-existent. The art
of making it is known to only one living person, the Chief Circle
for the time being; and by him it is handed down on his death-bed
to none but his Successor. One manufactory alone produces it; and,
lest the secret should be betrayed, the Workmen are annually consumed,
and fresh ones introduced. So great is the terror with which even now
our Aristocracy looks back to the far-distant days of the agitation
for the Universal Colour Bill.
It is high time that I should pass from these brief and discursive
notes about things in Flatland to the central event of this book,
my initiation into the mysteries of Space. THAT is my subject;
all that has gone before is merely preface.
For this reason I must omit many matters of which the explanation
would not, I flatter myself, be without interest for my Readers:
as for example, our method of propelling and stopping ourselves,
although destitute of feet; the means by which we give fixity
to structures of wood, stone, or brick, although of course
we have no hands, nor can we lay foundations as you can,
nor avail ourselves of the lateral pressure of the earth;
the manner in which the rain originates in the intervals between
our various zones, so that the northern regions do not intercept
the moisture from falling on the southern; the nature of our
hills and mines, our trees and vegetables, our seasons and harvests;
our Alphabet and method of writing, adapted to our linear tablets;
these and a hundred other details of our physical existence I must
pass over, nor do I mention them now except to indicate to my readers
that their omission proceeds not from forgetfulness on the part of
the author, but from his regard for the time of the Reader.
Yet before I proceed to my legitimate subject some few
final remarks will no doubt be expected by my Readers upon those
pillars and mainstays of the Constitution of Flatland,
the controllers of our conduct and shapers of our destiny,
the objects of universal homage and almost of adoration:
need I say that I mean our Circles or Priests?
When I call them Priests, let me not be understood as meaning
no more than the term denotes with you. With us, our Priests
are Administrators of all Business, Art, and Science;
Directors of Trade, Commerce, Generalship, Architecture, Engineering,
Education, Statesmanship, Legislature, Morality, Theology;
doing nothing themselves, they are the Causes of everything
worth doing, that is done by others.
Although popularly everyone called a Circle is deemed a Circle,
yet among the better educated Classes it is known that no Circle
is really a Circle, but only a Polygon with a very large number
of very small sides. As the number of the sides increases,
a Polygon approximates to a Circle; and, when the number
is very great indeed, say for example three or four hundred,
it is extremely difficult for the most delicate touch to feel
any polygonal angles. Let me say rather, it WOULD be difficult:
for, as I have shown above, Recognition by Feeling is unknown
among the highest society, and to FEEL a Circle would be considered
a most audacious insult. This habit of abstention from Feeling
in the best society enables a Circle the more easily to sustain
the veil of mystery in which, from his earliest years, he is wont
to enwrap the exact nature of his Perimeter or Circumference.
Three feet being the average Perimeter it follows that,
in a Polygon of three hundred sides each side will be no more than
the hundredth part of a foot in length, or little more than the tenth
part of an inch; and in a Polygon of six or seven hundred sides
the sides are little larger than the diameter of a Spaceland pin-head.
It is always assumed, by courtesy, that the Chief Circle
for the time being has ten thousand sides.
The ascent of the posterity of the Circles in the social scale
is not restricted, as it is among the lower Regular classes,
by the Law of Nature which limits the increase of sides to one
in each generation. If it were so, the number of sides in a Circle
would be a mere question of pedigree and arithmetic,
and the four hundred and ninety-seventh descendant of
an Equilateral Triangle would necessarily be a Polygon with
five hundred sides. But this is not the case. Nature's Law
prescribes two antagonistic decrees affecting Circular propagation;
first, that as the race climbs higher in the scale of development,
so development shall proceed at an accelerated pace; second,
that in the same proportion, the race shall become less fertile.
Consequently in the home of a Polygon of four or five hundred sides
it is rare to find a son; more than one is never seen.
On the other hand the son of a five-hundred-sided Polygon has been
known to possess five hundred and fifty, or even six hundred sides.
Art also steps in to help the process of the higher Evolution.
Our physicians have discovered that the small and tender sides
of an infant Polygon of the higher class can be fractured,
and his whole frame re-set, with such exactness that a Polygon
of two or three hundred sides sometimes -- by no means always,
for the process is attended with serious risk -- but sometimes
overleaps two or three hundred generations, and as it were doubles
at a stroke, the number of his progenitors and the nobility
of his descent.
Many a promising child is sacrificed in this way. Scarcely one
out of ten survives. Yet so strong is the parental ambition
among those Polygons who are, as it were, on the fringe of
the Circular class, that it is very rare to find a Nobleman
of that position in society, who has neglected to place his first-born
in the Circular Neo-Therapeutic Gymnasium before he has attained
the age of a month.
One year determines success or failure. At the end of that time
the child has, in all probability, added one more to the tombstones
that crowd the Neo-Therapeutic Cemetery; but on rare occasions
a glad procession bears back the little one to his exultant parents,
no longer a Polygon, but a Circle, at least by courtesy:
and a single instance of so blessed a result induces multitudes
of Polygonal parents to submit to similar domestic sacrifices,
which have a dissimilar issue.
It was the last day but one of the 1999th year of our era,
and the first day of the Long Vacation. Having amused myself
till a late hour with my favourite recreation of Geometry,
I had retired to rest with an unsolved problem in my mind.
In the night I had a dream.
I saw before me a vast multitude of small Straight Lines
(which I naturally assumed to be Women) interspersed with other Beings
still smaller and of the nature of lustrous points -- all moving
to and fro in one and the same Straight Line, and, as nearly as I
could judge, with the same velocity.
A noise of confused, multitudinous chirping or twittering
issued from them at intervals as long as they were moving;
but sometimes they ceased from motion, and then all was silence.
Approaching one of the largest of what I thought to be Women,
I accosted her, but received no answer. A second and a third appeal
on my part were equally ineffectual. Losing patience at what
appeared to me intolerable rudeness, I brought my mouth
into a position full in front of her mouth so as to intercept
her motion, and loudly repeated my question, "Woman, what signifies
this concourse, and this strange and confused chirping,
and this monotonous motion to and fro in one and the same
Straight Line?"
<<Illustration 6>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
My view of Lineland
---------
| |
| Myself|
| |
My eye o--------
Thinking that it was time to bring down the Monarch from his raptures
to the level of common sense, I determined to endeavour to
open up to him some glimpses of the truth, that is to say
of the nature of things in Flatland. So I began thus:
"How does your Royal Highness distinguish the shapes and positions
of his subjects? I for my part noticed by the sense of sight,
before I entered your Kingdom, that some of your people are Lines
and others Points, and that some of the Lines are larger --"
"You speak of an impossibility," interrupted the King;
"you must have seen a vision; for to detect the difference between
a Line and a Point by the sense of sight is, as every one knows,
in the nature of things, impossible; but it can be detected by
the sense of hearing, and by the same means my shape can be
exactly ascertained. Behold me -- I am a Line, the longest
in Lineland, over six inches of Space --" "Of Length",
I ventured to suggest. "Fool," said he, "Space is Length.
Interrupt me again, and I have done."
I apologized; but he continued scornfully, "Since you are impervious
to argument, you shall hear with your ears how by means of
my two voices I reveal my shape to my Wives, who are at this moment
six thousand miles seventy yards two feet eight inches away, the one
to the North, the other to the South. Listen, I call to them."
He chirruped, and then complacently continued: "My wives at this
moment receiving the sound of one of my voices, closely followed by
the other, and perceiving that the latter reaches them after
an interval in which sound can traverse 6.457 inches, infer that one
of my mouths is 6.457 inches further from them than the other,
and accordingly know my shape to be 6.457 inches. But you will
of course understand that my wives do not make this calculation
every time they hear my two voices. They made it, once for all,
before we were married. But they COULD make it at any time.
And in the same way I can estimate the shape of any of
my Male subjects by the sense of sound."
"But how," said I, "if a Man feigns a Woman's voice with one of
his two voices, or so disguises his Southern voice that it cannot
be recognized as the echo of the Northern? May not such deceptions
cause great inconvenience? And have you no means of checking frauds
of this kind by commanding your neighbouring subjects to feel
one another?" This of course was a very stupid question,
for feeling could not have answered the purpose; but I asked
with the view of irritating the Monarch, and I succeeded perfectly.
"What!" cried he in horror, "explain your meaning." "Feel, touch,
come into contact," I replied. "If you mean by FEELING,"
said the King, "approaching so close as to leave no space
between two individuals, know, Stranger, that this offence
is punishable in my dominions by death. And the reason is obvious.
The frail form of a Woman, being liable to be shattered
by such an approximation, must be preserved by the State;
but since Women cannot be distinguished by the sense of sight
from Men, the Law ordains universally that neither Man nor Woman
shall be approached so closely as to destroy the interval
between the approximator and the approximated.
"And indeed what possible purpose would be served by this illegal
and unnatural excess of approximation which you call TOUCHING,
when all the ends of so brutal and coarse a process are attained
at once more easily and more exactly by the sense of hearing?
As to your suggested danger of deception, it is non-existent:
for the Voice, being the essence of one's Being, cannot be thus
changed at will. But come, suppose that I had the power of passing
through solid things, so that I could penetrate my subjects,
one after another, even to the number of a billion, verifying the size
and distance of each by the sense of FEELING: how much time
and energy would be wasted in this clumsy and inaccurate method!
Whereas now, in one moment of audition, I take as it were the census
and statistics, local, corporeal, mental and spiritual,
of every living being in Lineland. Hark, only hark!"
So saying he paused and listened, as if in an ecstasy,
to a sound which seemed to me no better than a tiny chirping
from an innumerable multitude of lilliputian grasshoppers.
"Truly," replied I, "your sense of hearing serves you in good stead,
and fills up many of your deficiencies. But permit me to point out
that your life in Lineland must be deplorably dull. To see nothing
but a Point! Not even to be able to contemplate a Straight Line!
Nay, not even to know what a Straight Line is! To see, yet be cut off
from those Linear prospects which are vouchsafed to us in Flatland!
Better surely to have no sense of sight at all than to see so little!
I grant you I have not your discriminative faculty of hearing;
for the concert of all Lineland which gives you such intense pleasure,
is to me no better than a multitudinous twittering or chirping.
But at least I can discern, by sight, a Line from a Point.
And let me prove it. Just before I came into your kingdom,
I saw you dancing from left to right, and then from right to left,
with Seven Men and a Woman in your immediate proximity on the left,
and eight Men and two Women on your right. Is not this correct?"
"It is correct," said the King, "so far as the numbers and sexes
are concerned, though I know not what you mean by 'right' and 'left'.
But I deny that you saw these things. For how could you see the Line,
that is to say the inside, of any Man? But you must have
heard these things, and then dreamed that you saw them.
And let me ask what you mean by those words 'left' and 'right'.
I suppose it is your way of saying Northward and Southward."
"Not so," replied I; "besides your motion of Northward and Southward,
there is another motion which I call from right to left."
KING. Exhibit to me, if you please, this motion from left to right.
I. Nay, that I cannot do, unless you could step out
of your Line altogether.
KING. Out of my Line? Do you mean out of the world? Out of Space?
I. Well, yes. Out of YOUR World. Out of YOUR Space.
For your Space is not the true Space. True Space is a Plane;
but your Space is only a Line.
KING. If you cannot indicate this motion from left to right by
yourself moving in it, then I beg you to describe it to me in words.
I. If you cannot tell your right side from your left,
I fear that no words of mine can make my meaning clear to you.
But surely you cannot be ignorant of so simple a distinction.
KING. I do not in the least understand you.
I. Alas! How shall I make it clear? When you move straight on,
does it not sometimes occur to you that you COULD move
in some other way, turning your eye round so as to look
in the direction towards which your side is now fronting?
In other words, instead of always moving in the direction
of one of your extremities, do you never feel a desire to move
in the direction, so to speak, of your side?
KING. Never. And what do you mean? How can a man's inside
"front" in any direction? Or how can a man move in the direction
of his inside?
I. Well then, since words cannot explain the matter,
I will try deeds, and will move gradually out of Lineland
in the direction which I desire to indicate to you.
At the word I began to move my body out of Lineland.
As long as any part of me remained in his dominion and in his view,
the King kept exclaiming, "I see you, I see you still;
you are not moving." But when I had at last moved myself
out of his Line, he cried in his shrillest voice, "She is vanished;
she is dead." "I am not dead," replied I; "I am simply
out of Lineland, that is to say, out of the Straight Line
which you call Space, and in the true Space, where I can see things
as they are. And at this moment I can see your Line, or side --
or inside as you are pleased to call it; and I can see also the Men
and Women on the North and South of you, whom I will now enumerate,
describing their order, their size, and the interval between each."
<<Illustration 7>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
<<Illustration 8>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
<<Illustration 9>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
/\
/ |My \
/ <> |Study \
/______ | ___ \
/ <> My Sons\ \|The \
/______/ \ Page / \
N / <> \ / My \
^ /______/ THE HALL \ Bedroom \
| \ <> My\ /
| \____| /\Wife's /
W--+--E \ My Wife / Apartment/
| ------- /\ --- \ WOMEN'S DOOR
| MEN'S DOOR \My Daughter
| /\ --== \ / The Scullion
S \ My Grandsons \ -==# \/ The Footman
\___ ___ _ _/ \-=#|/ The Butler
\ <> | <> | |THE CELLAR \ /
\____|____|_|____________/
###===--- ---===###
Policeman Policeman
<<Illustration 10>>
<<ASCII approximation follows>>
(1) (2)
__________ __________
|\ |\ | \
| \ | \ | \
| \ ____|____\ | \
| | | | | |
|_____|____| | | |
\ | \ | \ |
\ | \ | \ |
\|_________\| \ __________|